Hailo, the London-based taxi hailing app, is due to get its third chief executive in as many months as it battles the rise of Uber. Andrew Pinnington, former chief operating officer at Carphone Warehouse, is the latest to be appointed to the role and replaces Tom Barr.

Tom Barr was a former executive at Starbucks, who took over when Hailo’s co-founder Jay Bregman stepped down in October following their decision to pull out of North America.Mr Barr is reported to have found it increasingly difficult to juggle running the London-based company with his responsibilities to his young family.

Hailo had been tipped as one of the most promising start-up company in Europe, working with licensed black cabs to produce a hailing service. Unlike Uber, it didn’t act as a middle man between customers and private drivers, and so wasn’t seen as undercutting licensed traditional cab companies.

Founded by three executives from a technical background and three black cab drivers, Hailo had attracted investment from top-tier venture capitalists such as Atomico, Union Square Ventures and Accel Partners. It has struggled however to keep up with a highly aggressive pricing war for customers with competitors such as Uber and Lyft.

A move to open its service to private drivers has been met with opposition by black cab drivers in London.

Mr Pinnington is the first British chief executive for the company and his presence suggests a renewed focus on European markets. Even with the pull out from North America, the company’s sales in the last quarter for 2014 are reportedly its strongest yet.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that sometimes a thoughtless post on social media can have expensive consequences. Forrest Lucas, the co-founder of Lucas Oil, has certainly demonstrated this following an outrageous outburst on Facebook by his wife. He has taken out a full-page advert in the Indianapolis Star to apologise on her behalf.
Charlotte Lucas had posted on her social media feed:

“I’m sick and tired of minorities running our country! As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think that atheists (minority), muslims (minority) nor any other minority group has the right to tell the majority of the people in the United States what they can and cannot do here. Is everyone so scared that they can’t fight back for what is right or wrong with his country?”

The post was not up for long, and was deleted again soon afterwards. Charlotte apologised at the time, declaring that she had been trying to vent the anger that she felt over the influence exerted by special interest groups over elected officials. In a move to address ongoing anger over the post however, her husband took out the ad, part of which read:

“Although it was not Charlotte’s intent to offend anyone, her comments were harsh and insensitive. Her words were hurtful to many and disappointing to all. Make no mistake, Charlotte feels extremely saddened by her actions and regrets the posting.”

While unequivocal, some might have liked to see the apology come directly from her, while others have wondered if this method of apology might not catch on both in traditional and online media – perhaps a series of sponsored tweets to apologise for your children’s’ behaviour could be offered to parents by enterprising entrepreneurs.

American Energy Partners LP has hired John K Reinhart, a former Chesapeake Energy Corp. executive, to take over as chief operating officer for two of its affiliates in the Utica and Marcellus shales.

Reinhart has a twenty year career in the industry, of which the last eight were at Chesapeake – where he most recently held the position of senior vice president of operations and technical services, leading 1,400 employees. His new role will see him taking control of operations in Ohio and West Virginia, in the same regions that he was involved with when he was with Chesapeake. During his time there, Chesapeake grew to be the largest producer of oil and natural gas. American Energy believes that he is the best person to develop their operations in the area as a result.

The two LLCs that he will control: American Energy-Utica and American Energy-Marcellus are already in primed for growth as he steps into his new role. The former is in an industry-leading position in eastern Ohio’s Utica region while the Marcellus LLC has just acquired about 48,000 acres across five counties in West Virginia. This has given it a solid foothold in developing its natural gas production.

American Energy has ambitious plans for the two operations, with over 3,000 new wells planned over the next decade backed by up to $25 billion in new investment. The company, based in Oklahoma City, was founded last year by Aubrey McClendon – himself a former Chesapeake CEO – and has raised more than $13 billion in the last sixteen months. They currently hold 630,000 net acres and have built their production up to the equivalent of 82,000 barrels of oil a day to date.